(Written Sept. 16, 2007)

My 'Writing Blog' P.2

Below is an email from a student. It
contains his/her Task 1 & Task 2 for the Cambridge Practice Tests, Book
6. Following the essays are my comments and my grade.

*******************************

CAMBRIDGE IELTS 6 Test 2

TASK1

The table below gives information about
changes in modes of travel in England between 1985 and 2000.

Summarize the information by selecting
and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.

Average distance in miles traveled per person per year, by mode of
travel

1985

2000

Walking

255

237

Bicycle

51

41

Car

3,199

4,806

Local bus

429

274

Long distance bus

54

124

Train

289

366

Taxi

13

42

Other

450

585

All modes

4,740

6,475

TASK 1

The
table illustrates the average distance traveled per person in England by
different means of travel between 1985 and 2000.
By all traffic tools used by
travelers, the total distance jumped from 4,740 miles in 1985 to 6,475
miles by the year 2000.

Compare each travel mode to another,
it is easy to find that the
distance of people choosing walking, bicycle and local bus as ways to
travel went down during the 15-year period.
Instead, distance of people
traveling by car, long distance bus, train, taxi and other increased
during the same period. The most significant increase was the
distance of residents traveling
by taxi, which raised up to 42
miles in 2000, approximately 3 times as it was in 1985 (13 miles). By
contrast, the most obvious drop happened
in travel tool of local bus. The
distance people traveled by this means decreased from 429 miles to 274
miles in 2000.

In
general, distance of residents
traveling in England increased by approximately 36 per cent between 1985
and 2000 in all travel modes.

P1: 2 sentences, 43 words

P2: 5 sentences, 110 words

P3: 1 sentence, 22 words

Total: 8 sentences, 175 words

TASK 2

Successful sports professionals can earn
a great deal more money than people in other important professions. Some
people think this is fully justified while others think it is unfair.

Discuss both these views and give your
own opinion.

Give reasons for your answer and include
any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

TASK 2

It has been argued
that it is totally unfair that athletes earn much more money than
professionals who succeed in
other vital fields. Those who claim that it is unfair, however, ignore
the unique character of sports
profession: athletes represent not only themselves but also the image of
the whole country. Considering this
unique trait of sports, the
conclusion could be drawn that it is reasonable for successful
athletes to receive more income than others.

As we know,
athletes represent the nation to attend
sports games. Once they win, the reputation of the country is
built. Since the reputation of the country is so precious that it cannot
be measured by money, athletes should be paid more as a kind of reward
to celebrate their achievements. Consequently, it is quite fair that
successful sports professional gain more wealth than people in other
important areas. Hold China as an
example to support this phenomenon. When Chinese athletes win in
Olympic Games, they
would receive a large amount of
money from not only the central government, but regional government as
well in that they are considered to
gain reputation of China and they deserve these rewards.

In
addition, those who believe that it is unfair to pay athletes more than
others ignore the connection between the success of athletes and the
image of the nation. They focus on how
much money athletes earn, rather than the importance of national
reputation. Hence, this claim is irrational and unreasonable.

To conclude, it is justified and reasonable that successful
sports professionals receive more income than other specialists in
various areas in that they build positive images for both themselves and
the whole nation.

P1: 3 sentences, 75 words

P2: 6 sentences, 119 words

P3: 3 sentences, 51 words

P4: 1 sentence, 33 words

Total: 13 sentences, 278 words

Task 1

Task Fulfillment:
8

Coherence & Cohesion:
7 Quite good usage of connective devices. (Better to use On the other
hand rather than Instead.) Just a little difficult to follow in
places due to vocab/grammar errors and inappropriacies.

Vocab & Sentence Structure:
5 (Several minor errors)

Total Task 1
score:
7(8+7+5)/3 = 7

Task 2

Your interpretation of the meaning of a
"professional athlete" is different to what most foreigners would
consider to be a "professional athlete". Most other countries do not
reward Olympic Gold Medallists as well as China does for its Gold Medal
winners.

Most foreigners think of people such as
Yao Ming or Tiger Woods when they think of professional athletes and the
fact that you did not mention Yao or similar sportspeople leads me to
believe that you are not sure of the wider meaning of a "sports
professional". Yao Ming is the perfect example of an athlete who fits
the description of, a " sports professional who earn a
great deal more money than
people in other important professions." Obviously, the original
intention of the test question writer was for you to write about this
group of athletes. In other words, athletes who primarily compete to
represent their country, such as in the Olympic Games, Asian Games etc.,
are notthe
highly-paid athletes referred to in the question. Don't forget that
IELTS Writing test questions are used throughout the whole world and
therefore reflect the worldwide situation, not just the situation in
China. For you to be aware of the
world outside China, you need to read widely.

The usage of the term, "sports
professional" instead of, "professional athlete" implies that there are
others who make their living from sport, besides the athletes
themselves. Do you really understand the meaning of, 'professional'? A
weakness in your essay is that you only referred to one sub-set of
'sports professionals'. Sports is now a business and top sports
managers earn high salaries. You only referred to professional
athletes.

It is true that Chinese Olympic Gold
Medalists are well rewarded when they return to China and that many of
them move on to rather well-paid positions (compared to other
professionals) in the sports world as a result of their Olympic success.
It is also true that these people can be labeled as "professional
athletes" or, after they retire from competition, as "sports
professionals" if they continue to work in the sports world.
Furthermore, your argument that the value of national reputation far
surpasses the value of most everyday achievements is an acceptable
personal opinion, although this level of patriotism is unusual overseas,
where foreign IELTS Writing test examiners come from. However there is
one serious weakness in your choice of Chinese Olympic Gold Medallists
as, "sports professionals" - their income is nota great deal more
than that of other professionals such as doctors and engineers. It is
important to be factually correct in a Task 2 essay.

Your idea of the value of national
reputation was the only idea you
presented in support of the high salaries of these sports professionals.
If you had given more details about why national reputation is so
important your argument would have been stronger and more convincing. IELTS
examiners want to see several ideas, not just one. These several
ideas could be several ideas that support a single central idea or they
could be several central ideas. If you had discussed the value of
national reputation in more detail, that would have qualified as
'several ideas'.

Furthermore, you 'dismissed' all
discussion of the other side of the argument by labeling their
beliefs/feelings as, "irrational and unreasonable"
simply because they do not have the same degree of nationalism as you.
You did not give any further details about how or why their
beliefs/feelings are, "irrational
and unreasonable". This is not a
good example of the kind of rational, logical argument that IELTS essays
should contain. The essay instructions asked you to give your opinion
and the opinion of the other side but you did not really do that in the
balanced, 'academic' style that is expected in Western universities. To
repeat: The style of writing that is expected in Task 2 includes your
personal opinion and that of the other side of the argument, without
making dismissive judgments such as calling those who disagree with
your opinion, "irrational
and unreasonable". [A 'dismissive
judgment' seemsto give you a good reason
not to discuss the matter any further. But that is just an excuse, not a
valid reason.]

Looking at the wording of the question again, we see that these words
are included: "Some people think this is fully justified while
others think it is unfair. " Basically, you gave your opinion
concerning the justification for these higher salaries but
you didn't really focus on the question of the fairness of
these salaries; these two ideas are not the same, in fact, they are not
even related. That is, the idea of 'unfairness' is really quite
unrelated to ideas about the value of national reputation. Fairness
involves a comparison with others to see if there is some kind of
balance. The question says that, "others think this is unfair". Which
'others'? What unfairness? You did not touch on these questions. For the
topic of this essay, 'others' are the people in other important
professions,
such as doctors, lawyers, engineers etc. The unfairness implied in this
question is the fact that these other important professionals are much
more educated than most professional sportspeople. The assumption
is that educated (brain developed) people have a higher intrinsic value
than those who are highly developed in physical skills and prowess
because the assumption is that highly educated people
contribute more to society than other people. Basically, this discussion
is about the importance to society of professional sportspeople,
relative to the importance of other professionals. This further leads to
the question of how salaries should be determined - whether one's salary
should rigidly reflect one's educational level, or whether salaries
should reflect the importance to society of one's work, or whether
'market forces' should determine salaries.

If you had chosen to write about professional athletes such as Yao Ming,
some of whom have annual incomes in the tens of millions of U.S.
dollars, any comparison of such salaries with those of typical
doctors, lawyers and engineers would have been pointless and ridiculous.
The nature of the 'fairness' question would now be changed to the
philosophical question of whether any one person should be allowed (by
the system) to earn an income that is astronomical,
compared to the average person, not just compared to professionals.
Ultimately, this line of discussion leads to a re-examination of the
socio-economic system itself.

Traditionally, taxation has been the means to create some semblance of
fairness among people but even a rate of taxation of 60% is possibly too
low when we are talking about a personal income of
tens of millions of U.S. dollars per
year.

Communicative Quality:
6.

It's relatively easy to follow your
logic. And you did use some connective devices appropriately.

However, there were patches where I had
to pause to think about what you really mean. For example, your
introduction was referring to professional athletes in general,
(that means worldwide because you did not specify, 'in China']. It is
important to understand that Task 2 topics are used all over the world.
Therefore, the wording applies to the whole world, not just China.
Yes, as an example, you can and should refer to what you know best, the
situation in China. However, when you write about a situation that is
unique to China, you must specifically
mention that you are referring to China. (But first you have to
know it is unique to China!) [What 'uniquely Chinese
situation' was your introduction referring to? It was the idea that,
"(professional) athletes represent not only themselves but also
the image of the whole country". Most native English speakers
such as IELTS Writing test examiners do not think that people such as
David Beckham, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan (if he were still playing) or
even Roger Federer are representing their countries to any great degree.
But you might not be aware of this fact.]

In your writing, you should try to avoid
causing the examiner to 'pause in order to consider your meaning' - if
the reader has to do that, it means your meaning is not immediately
clear. Remember, your overall aim in the Writing Test is to COMMUNICATE with the
examiner, not to 'impress' the examiner.

In the case of IELTS candidates,
especially those from cultures or societies that are quite different to
the main English-speaking cultures, you have to remember that you are
communicating not just across language barriers, you are also
communicating cross-culturally. This means you need to understand how
China differs to say, Britain, Australia & the U.S. in terms of culture
& social system. For Chinese candidates, you need to be aware that your
culture & society is basically composed of two parts: a) the traditional
Chinese culture & society that was strongly influenced by Feudalism,
Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism and, b) the modern Chinese culture &
society that has developed in China since 1949. In both of these areas,
Chinese people are quite distinctive, compared to people from most of
the West.

Vocabulary & Sentence Structure:
6.

A few (minor) errors balanced by some
well-written sentences and suitable vocabulary.

Speaking about professional athletes:
These high salaries for some athletes result from the large amount of
money that is connected with the advertising industry  the
saleability of athletes and their teams.

Another fact is that more and more
professional athletes are willing to represent their counties in the
Olympics, in contrast to the situation a few years ago when these
athletes were more concerned about making large incomes.

Those areas in your essay highlighted
in yellow have errors or unsuitable/inappropriate English. For
example, Olympic Games should always be preceded by the word,
the. And, traffic tools should be, means of transport, forms
of transport or modes of transport. I do not have time to point
out and explain every error in your essay. This is the most
time-consuming part of grading essays and I hate doing it for no
pay. I have other things to do.

The richness of
your ideas and the strength of your arguments (including the logic, not
just the strength of your English) is VITAL for getting a good
Task 2 score.This requires a certain level of general
knowledge, maturity and sophistication.

（写于 2007 年
9 月
16 日）

我的写作博客第
2 页

The table below gives information about
changes in modes of travel in England between 1985 and 2000.

Summarize the information by selecting
and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.

Average distance in miles traveled per person per year, by mode of
travel

1985

2000

Walking

255

237

Bicycle

51

41

Car

3,199

4,806

Local bus

429

274

Long distance bus

54

124

Train

289

366

Taxi

13

42

Other

450

585

All modes

4,740

6,475

TASK 1

The
table illustrates the average distance traveled per person in England by
different means of travel between 1985 and 2000.
By all traffic tools used by
travelers, the total distance jumped from 4,740 miles in 1985 to 6,475
miles by the year 2000.

Compare each travel mode to another,
it is easy to find that the
distance of people choosing walking, bicycle and local bus as ways to
travel went down during the 15-year period.
Instead, distance of people
traveling by car, long distance bus, train, taxi and other increased
during the same period. The most significant increase was the
distance of residents traveling
by taxi, which raised up to 42
miles in 2000, approximately 3 times as it was in 1985 (13 miles). By
contrast, the most obvious drop happened
in travel tool of local bus. The
distance people traveled by this means decreased from 429 miles to 274
miles in 2000.

In
general, distance of residents
traveling in England increased by approximately 36 per cent between 1985
and 2000 in all travel modes.

第 1
段：2
句话，43
个单词

第2
段：5
句话，110
个单词

第 3
段：1
句话，22
个单词

总计：8
句话，175
个单词

TASK 2

Successful sports professionals can earn
a great deal more money than people in other important professions. Some
people think this is fully justified while others think it is unfair.

Discuss both these views and give your
own opinion.

Give reasons for your answer and include
any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

TASK 2

It has been argued
that it is totally unfair that athletes earn much more money than
professionals who succeed in
other vital fields. Those who claim that it is unfair, however, ignore
the unique character of sports
profession: athletes represent not only themselves but also the image of
the whole country. Considering this
unique trait of sports, the
conclusion could be drawn that it is reasonable for successful
athletes to receive more income than others.

As we know,
athletes represent the nation to attend
sports games. Once they win, the reputation of the country is
built. Since the reputation of the country is so precious that it cannot
be measured by money, athletes should be paid more as a kind of reward
to celebrate their achievements. Consequently, it is quite fair that
successful sports professional gain more wealth than people in other
important areas. Hold China as an
example to support this phenomenon. When Chinese athletes win in
Olympic Games, they
would receive a large amount of
money from not only the central government, but regional government as
well in that they are considered to
gain reputation of China and they deserve these rewards.

In
addition, those who believe that it is unfair to pay athletes more than
others ignore the connection between the success of athletes and the
image of the nation. They focus on how
much money athletes earn, rather than the importance of national
reputation. Hence, this claim is irrational and unreasonable.

To conclude, it is justified and reasonable that
successful sports professionals receive more income than other
specialists in various areas in that they build positive images for both
themselves and the whole nation.

Task 2

大多数外国人在想到专业运动员的时候会想起像姚明或者泰格·伍兹（Tiger
Woods）这样的人，而事实上你没有提到姚明之类的运动员，这让我觉得你对于sports
professional的更广阔含义并不是很清楚。姚明是符合
sports professional who earn a great
deal more money than people in other important professions.描述的一个完美的例子。显而易见，出题者的本意是让你对这一类运动员进行写作。换句话说，主要为其国家来进行竞赛（比如奥运会、亚运会等）的运动员并不是问题中所提及的高收入运动员。别忘了，雅思写作考题是在全世界范围内使用的，因此它也体现了世界性的情况，而不止局限于中国地区。如果你想了解中国以外的世界上其它地区的情况，就需要广读多看了。

此外，你把另一方的观点/感受定性为irrational and unreasonable（无理的）而完全对其完全不予讨论，只不过因为他们没有与你同样充沛的爱国热情。对于他们的观点/感受到底是如何或者为什么irrational and unreasonable（无理的），你没有进一步给出任何细节。对于雅思写作中所应该包含的理性与逻辑性的论述，这一处做得并不好。写作题目的介绍部分中要求你给出你的看法以及另一方的看法，但是你并没有以平衡的学术式风格来完成这篇作文，而这正是西方大学里面所要求的。我重申：Task
2
的写作文风中应该包含你的个人观点和论述的另一方观点，而不要做出不予考虑的定论，比如将与你观点不同的看法称为irrational
and unreasonable。[不予考虑的定论貌似给了你一个不错的原因，不用再进一步讨论这件事了。但这只是一个借口，而不是合理的原因。]

我们再来看一下题目中的措辞，就会注意到里面说到：Some
people think this is fully justified while others think it is unfair。基本上，你对于这高收入的正当性（justification）给出了自己的观点，但是却没有关注其合理性（fairness）这个问题；这两个概念并不相同，事实上，他们甚至没有联系。这即是说，不公平这个概念与国家荣誉的价值之间没什么关系。公平性则需要与他人进行对比，并了解其中是否达到了某种平衡。题目中称others
think this is unfair。这些他人（others）是哪些人？又有哪些不公平？你没有触及到这些问题。对于这篇作文中的题目而言，他人（others）是指
people in other important professions（其他重要行业中的人），比如医生、律师、工程师等的。这个题目中所暗指的不公平性是指其他重要行业的专业人士比大多数体育专业人士所受的教育要多得多。假定受教育的（头脑发达的）人比身体技能发达和勇猛的人的内在价值要高，因为假设是受过良好教育的人比其他人对社会的贡献更大。基本上来说，这个讨论是对专业的体育人士和其他专业人士对于社会的重要性的比较。这会进一步涉及收入的分配方式究竟一个人的收入应该严格反映他/她的教育水平、应该体现其工作对于社会的重要性、还是应该由市场的力量来决定。

但是，我在有些地方必须要停下来，思考你真正要传达的意思是什么。例如，你在概述段中概括性地提到了专业运动员（即指世界范围内，因为你没有特别说明在中国）。你需要了解，Task
2
的话题是在全世界范围内使用的，这一点很重要。因此，其措辞适用于全世界范围，而非仅在中国。是的，在举例时，你可以也应该提及你最熟知的内容，那就是中国的情况。但是，当你在写中国的独特状况时，必须特别说明你在谈论中国的情况。（但是首先你必须知道这是有中国特色的情况！）[你在概述段中所提到的有中国特色的情况到底是什么？那就是(professional)
athletes represent not only themselves but also the image of the
whole country（专业运动员不仅代表自己，也代表了整个国家的形象）。大多数说英语国家的人士（比如雅思写作考官）不认为像贝克汉姆、泰格·伍兹、迈克尔·乔丹（如果他仍然在打球的话）或者甚至是罗杰·费德勒在任何程度上代表了他们的国家。但是你可能不了解这个事实情况。]

你的作文中用黄色刷亮的部分都有英语错误或者不恰当的使用情况。举例来说，Olympic
Games前面必须有the这个词，而traffic
tools应该改为means
of transport、forms of transport、modes
of transport。我没有时间指出并解释你在写作中的每一处错误。这是批改写作中最耗时的工作，而且我还有别的事情要忙，不愿意免费地去做这件事情。